Overwatch Game Developers Join CWA

Last week, nearly 200 video game developers behind Activision Blizzard’s hit franchise Overwatch formed a union with CWA, joining over 2,600 worker-organizers at Microsoft-owned studios who are fighting to build better video games, workplaces, and a better industry overall as part of the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA).

The wall-to-wall unit is composed of workers across all disciplines, including design, production, engineering, art, sound, and quality assurance, and will be represented by CWA Local 9510 in Orange County, Calif. It is the second wall-to-wall unit to organize at Microsoft, following in the footsteps of World of Warcraft workers who made history when they formed a union last year.

“After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organize our industry for the better, which has been long overdue,” said Foster Elmendorf, senior test analyst II and organizing committee member. “Workers organizing themselves and striving for better conditions as a group allows us to present initiatives that would not only improve our workplace but video games overall.”

Read the full press release here. Video game workers interested in organizing their workplace can reach out to a CODE-CWA organizer at code-cwa.org/organize.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.